Authentic Leadership

The theme of this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is “Responsible and Responsive Leadership.” But one possible reading of Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election is that voters these days care less about responsibility than “authenticity.”

COLOMBO – The theme of this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is “Responsible and Responsive Leadership.” But one possible reading of Donald Trump’s victory in the United States presidential election is that voters these days care less about responsibility than “authenticity.” Voters welcomed Trump’s reckless comments on sensitive issues because he was speaking his mind and being true to himself. Ordinary politicians, by always saying the “right” thing, seem packaged and staged.

But does authenticity need to involve recklessness? Alternatively, can “politically correct” behavior be a form of recklessness, to the extent that it evades difficult issues and focuses on what is easier to justify rather than what is right? Does authenticity involve facing the anxiety and anguish that Jean-Paul Sartre thought was the inevitable companion of freedom and responsibility?

These are questions for economic policymakers as much as for anyone else. Policymakers approach their task in two fundamentally different ways. One paradigm regards economic policies as a set of universal best practices. The more you adopt, the more they (investors) will come.

Ricardo Hausmann, a former minister of planning of Venezuela and former Chief Economist of the Inter-American Development Bank, is Director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University and a professor of economics at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Very good article but I am not sure of that “Ordinary politicians, by always saying the “right” thing, seem packaged and staged”.

More than this, in the long run they sounded (and still sound) like tedious besserwissers prohibiting the slightest doubts to be felt, and much less uttered in public. If you stop people from ventilating concerns, no matter how small, no matter how irrelevant, bad things will happen.

PS. Your reference to a “smörgåsbord” is a bit off. From such a “board” you can eat whatever you want, and so what you imply is more like a fixed menu of tapas.

Contrary to what the author says, Trump said what he thought his audience wanted to hear instead of "speaking his mind and being true to himself."

Anyone who paid close attention to Trump's campaign saw that Trump tried out various lines of attack, both during the primary campaign and again during the general election campaign, and quickly abandoned the ones that did not resonate with his audience while repeating the ones that his audience liked.

This article could have been written without the author injecting his belief that Trump is “reckless”, implying that “authenticity” (in quotes) and responsibility are incompatible. At end of article the author writes , “Authentic leadership requires a commitment to real goals. But, to achieve them, there are no prêt-à-porter solutions.” This is Trumpish. Trump has set out goals, and his pragmatism disallows ready-made solutions that stem from “politically correct” dogma.

The author also hypothesizes that “one possible reading of Donald Trump’s victory…is that voters these days care less about responsibility than “authenticity.” Another reading of Trump’s victory is that voter’s wanted responsible governance and saw Clinton continuing the irresponsibilities of Obama.

@ Curtis Carpenter
Whose reality? Those in the fly-over states or those in hipster urban centres?

I don't think Trump will bring much authenticity or responsibility to governance but he will eschew the OECD type solutions, discussed in the article, of an effete elite that like to endlessly pretend they are doing it for the good of the world and the little people.

An interesting opening observation about the relationship between responsibility and authenticity -- but thereafter, I get a little confused at what the message is here.

I would like to ask Mr. Hausmann how he would relate authenticity and responsibility, even taken in strictly economic terms, to the fact that the GINI coefficient for Panama stands at an extremely high 49.9 and Columbia's stands at an even more rarefied 60.4? Here in the U.S., the coefficient is a mere 15.9 -- yet economic inequality has been seen as a major issue driving demagogue Trump's success.

Existentialism argues for authenticity -- and also the necessity of choice, for which individuals must assume their individual responsibility if they are to BE authentic. Wouldn't it be fair to ask if an establishment that lauds a 49.9 GINI is either?

Another great article from Dr. Hausmann. The comparison between Panama and Colombia is intriguing and largely persuasive. However, it was not clear at all how this discussion was relevant to Trump. Dani Rodrik in his recent article explained that the U.S. industrial policy was already well developed and complex. So, his call was not to mess it up rather than to change the existing approach. It is not clear yet whether Trump wants to destroy the existing industrial policy. He may limit himself to cosmetic, yet flashy stories and cases, just to satisfy the cravings of the mass protests.

The article makes a great point but it is somewhat lost because most readers think Columbia is a company that makes movies and Panama is a company that makes swimming trunks.

The lesson is repeated with the US, who subscribed to a cookie cutter idea that deregulation, easy debt money and lower taxes will create prosperity. China on the other hand created bespoke 5 year and 10 year plans suited to their challenges and made them happen decade after decade.

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